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The idea is that it would cost less and make energy so cheap and abundant that it would completely change society. Fusion would allow you to get 30x energy out

The idea is that it would cost less and make energy so cheap and abundant that it would completely change society. Fusion would allow you to get 30x energy out vs energy in and has 10,000x the energy density of coal. If you want to explore space, it’s a good option.

epistasis 5y ago
I guess, why is it thought that it could be cheaper than geothermal, for example? Geothermal doesn't have fuel at all. I don't see how fusion produces energy cheap enough for it to be super abundant. And maybe that's just a failure of my imagination, but there seem to be massive gaps in others' reasoning that nobody has been able to fill me in on. Space travel is an entirely separate type of energy use, and I could see it being the only option for lots of applications. But that would be much further away, and the significant hurdles there can also be solved by other future tech advances like direct conversion for fusion to electricity.
- andruby 5y ago
  Even without fuel, geothermal still has constraints. Where can we build it? What are the build costs and costs to run (maintenance, staffing, etc)? I doubt we can scale geothermal indefinitely. Fusion might suffer from similar constraints, but afaik, doesn't need "much" space or specific geographic structures.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    FWIW, drilling tech is advancing at an incredible rate, making geothermal possible in all sorts of new places all the time. But my primary concern with fusion is cost. I don't see the path to being cheaper than geothermal, nor fission, and new fission is already some of our most expensive energy. The goal may be eventual space travel, which seems like a more plausible goal to talk about than sustainable energy.
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      There’s nothing fundamentally expensive about a Tokamak. We’re in the phase of fusion of “computers have 1 Kb of memory and take up a whole basement.”
      - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        What does 'fundamentally expensive' mean? If it does not incluse precision engineering to build largest vacuum vessel, supercomputers, superconductors, generation and containment of hottest substance on the planet, and largest magnetic fields we can produce. If that's not 'fundamentally expensive', then what is? Especially when your interlocutor is asking for geothermal, a.k.a. a hole in the ground?
        thehappypm 5y ago
        There’s no piece of the Tomamak individually that can’t be miniaturized or benefit from economies of scale. It doesn’t require exotic fuel like nuclear fission reactors do. It doesn’t need gigantic quantities of space and material like wind and solar. It doesn’t have high up front engineering costs like geothermal. One day a tokamak might be an off the shelf industrial purchase, maybe akin to an MRI machine.
        ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        "It doesn’t have high up front engineering costs like geothermal." You are commenting on an article about how scientists had to build a reactor out of berillium and tungsten. Have you ever touched those materials? Is there any berillium in your car, or your washing machine? If you go around your neighbourhood looking for someone who can weld or work tungsten, will you find anyone? Can you buy a tool on amazon that will cut tungsten? The number of facilities that can produce precision-enginered thousand-ton vacuum vessel with exotic materials, are counted with fingers on one hand. > Tritium is very exotic, and fuel cost is a small and irrelevant cost to fission powerplant This is downright delusional, solar is the only technology that you can go and buy off the shelf and it is much cheaper than an MRI machine, any joe with basic electrical education can put together a solar power system and poor people in developing nations do it. Anyone who thinks that fusion will be easier than slapping solar panels together is smoking some serious dope

epistasis 5y ago

I guess, why is it thought that it could be cheaper than geothermal, for example? Geothermal doesn't have fuel at all. I don't see how fusion produces energy cheap enough for it to be super abundant. And maybe that's just a failure of my imagination, but there seem to be massive gaps in others' reasoning that nobody has been able to fill me in on. Space travel is an entirely separate type of energy use, and I could see it being the only option for lots of applications. But that would be much further away, and the significant hurdles there can also be solved by other future tech advances like direct conversion for fusion to electricity.

andruby 5y ago
Even without fuel, geothermal still has constraints. Where can we build it? What are the build costs and costs to run (maintenance, staffing, etc)? I doubt we can scale geothermal indefinitely. Fusion might suffer from similar constraints, but afaik, doesn't need "much" space or specific geographic structures.
- epistasis 5y ago
  FWIW, drilling tech is advancing at an incredible rate, making geothermal possible in all sorts of new places all the time. But my primary concern with fusion is cost. I don't see the path to being cheaper than geothermal, nor fission, and new fission is already some of our most expensive energy. The goal may be eventual space travel, which seems like a more plausible goal to talk about than sustainable energy.
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    There’s nothing fundamentally expensive about a Tokamak. We’re in the phase of fusion of “computers have 1 Kb of memory and take up a whole basement.”
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      What does 'fundamentally expensive' mean? If it does not incluse precision engineering to build largest vacuum vessel, supercomputers, superconductors, generation and containment of hottest substance on the planet, and largest magnetic fields we can produce. If that's not 'fundamentally expensive', then what is? Especially when your interlocutor is asking for geothermal, a.k.a. a hole in the ground?
      - thehappypm 5y ago
        There’s no piece of the Tomamak individually that can’t be miniaturized or benefit from economies of scale. It doesn’t require exotic fuel like nuclear fission reactors do. It doesn’t need gigantic quantities of space and material like wind and solar. It doesn’t have high up front engineering costs like geothermal. One day a tokamak might be an off the shelf industrial purchase, maybe akin to an MRI machine.
        ClumsyPilot 5y ago
        "It doesn’t have high up front engineering costs like geothermal." You are commenting on an article about how scientists had to build a reactor out of berillium and tungsten. Have you ever touched those materials? Is there any berillium in your car, or your washing machine? If you go around your neighbourhood looking for someone who can weld or work tungsten, will you find anyone? Can you buy a tool on amazon that will cut tungsten? The number of facilities that can produce precision-enginered thousand-ton vacuum vessel with exotic materials, are counted with fingers on one hand. > Tritium is very exotic, and fuel cost is a small and irrelevant cost to fission powerplant This is downright delusional, solar is the only technology that you can go and buy off the shelf and it is much cheaper than an MRI machine, any joe with basic electrical education can put together a solar power system and poor people in developing nations do it. Anyone who thinks that fusion will be easier than slapping solar panels together is smoking some serious dope